Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Not literally, unfortunately, but she kicked his ass on this exchange. (gets good around the 2-minute mark)
This was so good, it almost makes me want to like Michele Bachmann, if it weren't for everything else about Michele Bachmann.

Oh, snap! So you're offended that someone would think you could be bought for a mere $5,000? How much does it take?

Of course, Bachman is right for all the wrong reasons. Her main objection seems to be that this was a "government injection," which means, what exactly? I'm not sure. Either the immunization was a good idea or it wasn't (hint: it wasn't. You can tell because Rick Perry was involved) but the government's involvement doesn't make it bad. Nor does it make it good, but if you're going to just dismiss something out of hand because it comes from the government, well, I hope you like not driving on paved roads, or getting your mail, or having a police department, etc. etc. etc. . . .

Oh, but don't worry, parents, you can opt out! If you don't want some durn guv'mint giving your young'uns no government vaccine, you can choode to let them go unvaccinated the way God intended!

Of course, when parents start opting out of vaccination programs, this sort of thing starts happening:

Whooping cough cases on rise

12:00 AM, Sep. 11, 2011

Florida infant dies of whooping cough

Published: Sept. 8, 2011

Snohomish mom, infant contract whooping cough; baby dies

SNOHOMISH, Wash. -- Snohomish County health officials confirm a newborn has died from pertussis, or more commonly known as "whooping cough."

That brings the total number of confirmed pertussis cases in the county to 52, double the number from last year.

There seems to be a trend in this country of parents distrusting vaccines. And both the right and the left seem to have an equal problem. On the right, anti-intellectualism and anti-science attitudes have been well documented. The idea seems to be that "if we admit that doctors are right about vaccines, then we might have to concede that the scientists have a point about the global warming thing. Then we might end up believing that we're related to monkeys, and we just can't have that! So it's whooping cough for you, Junior!"

On the left, I think that the thinking is that since vaccines are produced by big pharmaceutical compamies, and big pharmaceutical companies are evil, then by the transitive property of evil, vaccines must be bad.

Plus, they're not natural, man!

You want to know what it's like without vaccines? Find an old person. Ask him about polio. Ask him what it was like when whole neighborhoods went into panic mode because someone had polio and no one was safe. Ask anyone who lived through that what they think about opting out of immunizations for your child.

Or just ask the parents of this child if they're proud of their decision:
(Warning, hard to watch)